PAPUA PEGUNUNGAN – The Papua Mountains Men’s futsal team reopened to qualify for the semifinals at the 2024 National Sports Week, in the continuation of group B preliminaries, Papua Mountains won 3-1 over South Sulawesi, at the North Sumatra Dispora Futsal Sports Center, Sunday (31/8/2024).
This victory made Papua Pegunungan collect four points from three matches and still leaves two games, while this defeat made South Sulawesi follow Lampung and Banda Aceh home early.
South Sulawesi has just collected three points, while Lampung has no points and Aceh has four points but leaves one match, besides Papua Mountains, Banten and East Kalimantan also have a great opportunity to qualify for the semifinals after getting three consecutive wins.
After the match, Papua Mountains coach Matheus Balubun said that in this match his team played more solidly and all instructions given could run optimally, “We are grateful to God that we can appear consistent, we can achieve the first victory, until today Praise God we can take advantage, we take advantage of that, our target can reach three points,” said Matheus Balubun.
Practically this victory delayed the qualification of East Kalimantan and Banten, who both collected three wins. Papua Mountains still has a chance to qualify if they win the last two matches, “In principle we play as it is, we have no target, we walk as it is, consistently get three points, tomorrow and the day after tomorrow. Praise God if we win both, we don’t think about the results of other teams,” said Matheus Balubun.
While the captain of the Papua Mountains team Yance Agustinus was grateful to win this match, previously they had only picked one point, “I am grateful, even though we lost two matches and drew, today we got good results,” said Matheus Balubun.
While South Sulawesi admitted fatigue due to four consecutive matches without a break, “South Sulawesi failed to qualify, but I appreciate the play of my team, with a fairly tight schedule, four times in a row, we then played in the morning, they played twice, they rested, that’s what I regret. After playing we play again, some players who are injured, cannot perform optimally, this is the result of South Sulawesi’s struggle,” said Matheus Balubun.
While in another group B match, the Aceh team was able to win with a score of 6-1 over the Lampung team and while for today’s match, it also determines the team from group A that qualifies for the semifinals. The host of North Sumatra will challenge DKI Jakarta, which in the previous match won a 7-3 victory over East Nusa Tenggara.